


Gator-Proof Fence

by burglebezzlement



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alligators & Crocodiles, Florida, Gen, Memory Weirdness, Podfic Available, Spoilers through the end of S2, Treat, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 13:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13659615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Michael has his way of tipping the scales. Janet chooses another.Or: Jason remembers 803 versions of the Bad Place, but this one is definitely the weirdest.





	Gator-Proof Fence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telm_393](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/gifts).



When Jason wakes up, he’s slumped inside the safe, snorkel forgotten in one hand.

His vision is blurry, but there’s a woman standing in front of the safe. She’s got a fluffy shirt, and a fancy skirt, like the lawyer he had when he had to go to court because of that mini-golf course he blew up, and he doesn’t know why, but he trusts her for some reason.

“I just saved your life,” she says, cheerfully, and then she blows him a kiss. “Jason: remember.”

There’s a feeling inside his skull, like a million colors just exploded, and then the woman is gone.

Jason passes out.

* * *

When he wakes up again, he’s handcuffed to a hospital bed, and Pillboi is there, looking down at him. “Welcome back, homie,” Pillboi says.

“I guess we’re both dead now,” Jason says. He’s woken up a lot of times before but this is the first time Pillboi has ever been here. 

The nurse comes in then, and there’s a lot of confusing tests and Jason isn’t sure why Michael and Janet aren’t there. He asks for Janet like, a lot of times, but she doesn’t come. Instead, they send serious-looking doctors who make him look into flashlights and ask him a lot of questions about who Janet is and why he won’t stop asking for her.

* * *

After the hospital, Jason and Pillboi go to jail, which is okay. It’s better than the yogurt and at least he’s with his real homie this time.

He sees Tahani for the first time on the jail TV. She’s in a fancy dress and she’s cutting a ribbon. He can’t tell why she’s going it, but it seems like the kind of thing she enjoyed, which is confusing, because if she’s doing things she enjoys, when is the torture going to start?

Maybe Michael came up with something really bad this time. Sometimes things used to seem pretty good, but then they got bad all at once. Maybe this is one of those versions.

“I used to know her,” Jason says to Pillboi, pointing to the tiny TV screen, where Tahani is waving at the cameras and smiling. “She was like… really smart-brained.”

“Really?” Pillboi looks up at the TV. “Whoah. Respect, bro.”

* * *

Jason’s court-appointed attorney gets him a plea deal, which reduces his sentence to time served if he agrees not to sue the Jacksonville Police Department for selling the footage of him trying to rob the burrito place to America’s Most Stupidest Criminals. 

Pillboi’s grandma lets them live in her basement, which is pretty nice of her because the last time Pillboi went to jail, it was for stealing her pills. Jason’s not going to do that this time, though. He doesn’t know why, but it feels… wrong. Ethnically.

* * *

Jason finds out about the gator fence because of a flyer, stapled to a telephone pole next to the bus stop. It has a cartoon of a gator in a bow-tie, and Jason figures that’s probably important, so he goes to the address on the flyer.

The flyer was a liar, because there are a lot of gators at the address but none of them are in bow-ties. There’s a bunch of people, though, and one of them tells him that they’re working on a project to see if they can make a gator-proof fence, and he can volunteer to watch gators. They give him an assignment in a park, and a notebook, and an airhorn. If he sees a gator climb the fence, he writes down the time and what part of the fence the gator tried to climb, and then he blows the airhorn and observes what the gator does.

“Just don’t get yourself eaten,” the man in the lab coat says. “We’re a real low-budget operation here. We can’t afford worker’s comp.”

“You’re paying me? Sweet!” Jason grins. This is way better than the old job he had at the mini-golf course.

“No,” the man says, “I’m sorry, that was a joke. This is a volunteer position — we can’t afford cameras. We definitely can’t afford to pay you.”

“That’s cool too,” Jason says. There’s something tickling in his memory that says that volunteering is good. Maybe it’s something Tahani told him. “I might not be here on time always. Is that okay?”

The man sighs, kind of like Michael used to. 

“Just blow the airhorn when you see a gator. And make sure you write everything down. And you understand that we’re not going to pay you, right?”

* * *

There usually aren’t any people in Jason’s park. At first he figured he could play Ultimate or something while he gator-watched, but people don’t tend to hang out there, because it’s, like, super-hot out most of the time, and also there are all these gators.

Jason loses a whole bunch of Frisbees trying to get Mr. Scaley to play fetch. Mr. Scaley is Jason’s favorite gator. He’s really long — sometimes he’s as long as Jason is tall and sometimes he’s as long as the picnic table and once in a while he looks shorter for some reason, but he’s usually there, sunning himself on the mud on the other side of the gator-proof fence. He’s bad at catching Frisbees, but he’s a good listener. Mr. Scaley hangs out and listens while Jason tells him all about Tahani, and Eleanor, and Chidi, and Michael, and Janet, because Jason really misses them all.

“They’re gonna come get me,” Jason tells Mr. Scaley one day. Mr. Scaley has a couple friends who also look like Mr. Scaley, but Jason’s pretty sure he can tell them apart. “They always figure it out before I do, so I just have to wait.”

Mr. Scaley yawns, which means he’s paying attention. People usually yawn when Jason talks a lot, and he figures gators are probably the same.

He wonders how long it will take them. Usually they show up by now, but usually Janet shows up too, and she’s still not here, even though he says her name every morning and then waits to see if she’ll show up. Then he tells her how much he loves her, because if she can hear him, he figures she maybe wants to know, even if she can’t tell him back.

He leans back against the table. Maybe one of Mr. Scaley’s friends will try to climb the fence again, and he can use his airhorn.

* * *

Sometimes he wonders if he’s not in The Bad Place, but if he’s not in the Bad Place, that means his friends aren’t going to show up, and he knows they’re going to.

Jason gets a job working at the gas station down the street from Pillboi’s grandma’s house, pumping gas a couple nights a week. Pillboi gets a job delivering pizza, which sounds way more fun, only Jason doesn’t have a car and anyway his license is still suspended from that time he agreed to drive in that illegal demolition derby in the old shopping mall.

The owner of the gas station says he’s going to pay Jason under the table, but it’s cash instead, handed over the counter at the end of each shift. It’s not much, but it’s enough to buy food and it’s honest money, like Chidi always said they should be earning.

* * *

Jason’s watching the gators when the others show up.

It’s a humid afternoon, and the grass is damp from a thunderstorm that just passed through. Eleanor’s leading the group, in jeans and a loose shirt, and Chidi’s behind her in his button-down shirt. Tahani’s wearing a fancy sundress and heels, and she’s picking her way across the grass behind them.

Jason jumps up and grins. His friends are finally here. 

“Hey, guys! Where have you been? I’ve been here. I think Michael is trying to play that long game he was talking about, where it’s a game and it takes, like, a really long time.”

Chidi looks at him. “You know us?”

“Of course I do, homie!” Jason points between them. “Eleanor, Tahani, Chidi. We’re buds.”

The other three look at one another.

“This isn’t what I expected,” Chidi says, to the other two.

“Maybe he knows something we don’t.” Eleanor sits down at the table across from him. “Jason, right?”

Jason nods. She should know that. Maybe the others don’t know that this is the Bad Place yet. He’s pretty sure he didn’t used to remember that every time.

“How do you know us?” Eleanor asks.

“We’re BUDS,” Jason says, slowly. Maybe she’s having trouble hearing him.

She looks at the other two. “So… you guys have any idea what’s going on here?”

Tahani steps forward. “Prove it,” she says. “Prove you know us.”

“You’ve never seen Home Alone, and your favorite Furious is 2 Fast 2 Furious.” Jason wrinkles his nose. Tahani had insisted on stopping their watch-through of all the Fast and the Furious movies there, because she said no other movie could possibly compare, even though Jason told her she was missing out on all the really good ones.

Eleanor looks at Tahani. “Is that true?”

“How should I know?” Tahani throws her shoulders back. “I’ve never seen a …Furious. Whatever that is.”

“Oh! And you used to sell fake drugs,” Jason says to Eleanor. “I remember that.”

“Really?” Chidi turns to Eleanor. “Really?”

“We’ve all done some things we’re not proud of, man.” Eleanor turns back to Jason. “Fine. So you know our names, and you know some stuff about us. How? What’s your angle?”

Jason shrugs. “Mostly I watch gators.”

“We spent weeks tracking you down,” Tahani says, sounding exasperated. Chidi and Eleanor are sitting at the picnic table, across from Jason, but Tahani’s still standing, her arms crossed. “All three of us had near-death experiences, right at the same time, and we found one another, but we hadn’t found anyone else. And then we found the footage of you nearly dying on — what was it again?”

“America’s Most Stupidest Criminals,” Eleanor offers.

“Oh, yeah!” Jason grins. “You guys saw that? It was even better than the time I met Carson Daly.”

“So what’s going on?” Tahani asks. “What do you know? Because if you’re holding out on us, I for one am going to be furious.”

Jason stares at her. Maybe he really is the only one who knows what’s going on.

“We’re in the Bad Place,” he says. “I know Michael says it’s the Good Place, but it’s really the Bad Place.”

Tahani throws her arms up. “Who’s Michael?”

* * *

Tahani stomps off, her heels sinking into the grass, and Eleanor runs after her and talks her back to the picnic table. 

“He’s one of us,” Eleanor’s saying, as they come back. “Whatever else is going on here, he’s one of us.”

Tahani sighs and sits down at the table. “Fine.”

Chidi pushes his glasses up. “So… you think this is the Bad Place?”

Jason shrugs again. All the other versions were the Bad Place, so it makes sense that this one would be too. Michael used to talk to him about it sometimes. He always made Jason promise to forget, which Jason usually did, except he remembers everything now.

He wonders when someone else is going to show up to torture them, because usually they don’t get left alone together for this long.

“I really missed you guys,” Jason says.

Eleanor reaches across the table and takes his hand. “I know it’s hard,” she says. “I’m sure if we remembered you, we’d miss you too.”

“Tell us everything,” Chidi says. “Everything you remember.”

“All of it?” Jason checks their faces, because usually people don’t ask him to talk. “You’re sure?”

“All of it,” Chidi says, and Eleanor nudges Tahani, who uncrosses her arms.

Eleanor lets his hand go. “Come on, man. Don’t leave us hanging.”

Jason looks over at the gators, and then back at his buds.

“Okay,” he says. “It all started when I woke up, and this guy told me I was a monk, and I had taken a vow of silence, and also I was in the Good Place.” He points to his friends. “And that’s when I met you guys.”

Mr. Scaley has heard this one already, but Jason knows he won’t mind hearing it again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gator-Proof Fence [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17200916) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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